Star Trees
by alicemuralice
Summary: Once you enter the Labyrinth, you are forever imprinted there, easy to find, but being found in a dream is not always the safest thing. But who's to say you're dreaming anyway? Jareth comes upon Sarah in a recently undiscovered part of the Underground.


He felt that small pull in his mind. The thought of her left a swirling mess in his vision he found tingled his senses in a nirvana-like feeling he couldn't help but be addicted to. Without knowing why, he submerged himself in that mesmerizing spell like diving into vertigo, having no other thoughts but her. He seemed to float, to swim through the sensations and when he awoke he felt the stone beneath his hands and found his body in a crouch atop a high wall where far below him was…was…

A garden of trees. They must have been trees, they spindled up towards the sky and had bark and grew in the hundreds, stretching on and on. But he'd never seen trees that grew stars; at least that's what they resembled, as if they'd been plucked from the twilit horizon and collected in this valley like fruit. Small spheres of iridescent light quietly shimmering in the dusky sun of the evening. He stood frozen, marveling at their unconditional beauty. He had never stumbled upon this place before. He could tell it was not a new territory, but felt to him, in the way it beckoned to his core, very much like one of the few remaining areas that existed when his domain was first created. He gazed out at the undiscovered country before him in silent awe, for in this cluttered, decrepit kingdom such natural wonders were rare and precious. Yet he noticed that under the peaceful mirage of aged and whimsical splendor was a sort of melted feeling of familiarity he couldn't quite place. It irritated him that he couldn't remember where he'd seen these sphere's before-

_His crystals._ They were his _crystals!_ He could have fallen off the wall in shock. The carriers of so much of his magic, the source of so much convenience in his immortal existence, his messengers, his punishments. He had never considered the idea of them being a living Making of the Labyrinth.

"Intriguing," he murmured, almost afraid the mere light touch of his words would shatter his precious beauties.

A faint hiss of cloth on grass alerted him to her presence, breaking him out of his reverie. He watched in calculated silence, as the one who had unknowingly brought him here emerged from behind a star tree identical to its neighbors. A footstep, soft as rain, muffled through layers of trailing fabric; the cracked, fading white color of an antique holy deity descending to earth to revisit old places of worship where they had once shone in glory. She could have been a goddess of beauty or merely a lulling presence in the dreams of the troubled souls of the world, passing through like the swift gentle touch of some omnipotent celestial being; existing only in the briefest of happiness. Brushing her fingertips absentmindedly on the tree trunks as she passed he could almost _see_ the trail of wonder and love they yielded up into the air, rising to mingle with the dancing lights playing across the surfaces of his crystals. Her shining face was lifted slightly, eyes half closed, as if in some secret communion with the life around her. He couldn't help but hold his breath as she slowly approached, still unaware of his looming presence on the wall top above her, clinging like a huge, ominous spider surveying something usually considered prey draw near, but with no intention to do any harm…at the moment. The image seemed to waver in his vision like the murmur of air brushing calm waters on a hazy day as she walked almost beneath him; he didn't dare breathe. It must have been the ancient magic of the crystals causing this alteration in his sight, he decided, not the spell she seemed to be working on him effortlessly.

He leaned over precariously to watch her. There would have been no escape for her if he chose to descend on her now, but he waited, and watched, as she stopped at the wall, angelic head bent to regard something on the ground near her feet, something he couldn't quite see. That troubled him; for reasons unknown he felt a sudden urgency to view whatever it was and he leaned even farther out, grasping the branches of the nearest tree to steady himself. If only she would lean back…

And suddenly she was looking straight at him, face unsurprised, even expectant, like she had known all along. But he was completely unprepared for the fierce eyes and hard face that followed and beyond her crouched knees he could just barely discern the empty black sphere, a crystal as heavy and solid as black tar with no signs of delicacy, and contained within all the despair and rage ever known within the Grounds. It seared him even at this distance, lashing a doom-like bolt to pierce him through the heart. His senses left him as he toppled from the wall, falling into black as his love was left between the stars.

* * *

The cold sweat hit like a wave on a body still in after-shock from a blast of massing corroded death. Nothing made any sense; the small gold clock sounded just as abnormally loud, a tolling pulse playing a countermelody to his beating heart. He lay there, fully clothed, long spider web hands probing, feeling the flesh that should have been rotted from the tar's impact, but was revealed to be pure and untouched as it had always remained. The wet slither of silk and gossamer lifting from stone and he was upright and away, striding along twisting wind-a-way halls, fleeing with dignity the sound of his name being whispered in the dark.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **So, here's my debut. I worked very long and hard on this; started in September and ended one or two months ago (sheesh…). Hope you enjoyed!. 


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